GSR 800

Smokebox hotcakes!

They may well have been Galteemore, but mine are brass!

New handrails. This would've been how they looked in prime CIE steam days, when they hauled the Enterprise. for whatever the reason, the upper handrail on the smokebox door (from what I can see from several pictures) was always painted black. The pin for the hinge was also polished but I wont bother with trying to paint it as its printed detail.

I do have a few 57 footers kicking about, might be a project after this, since the early 50s is when I intend to model. Would look equally well behind a 3d printed 400..

800 class build: Going to put this up as a recap for the 800 build and to give a better idea of assembly for 3d printed locos. Here's the loco as arrived, with donor chassis fitted. Only thing added at this point by me was smokebox wheel and handrails. Handrail holes are modelled but require some drilling out. Smokebox door wheel with some brass rod (0.6 iirc) for the dart. Holes for handrail knobs being drilled out. Same again, wouldn't advise having the model so close to a ledge! Handrails and rodding added. May redo some of the handrailing at some point. Buffers, nameplates, numberplate came from SSM. Nameplates and numberplate can be sourced elsewhere iirc, but I'll have to find the manufacturer. Killian also offered to print the buffers. Safety valves are from the Royal Scot. Windows are supplied by Killian. Vacuum pipe was one I found in the spares box! Bit of a jump here to the painted model! Lining was HMRS LNER lining, which I found to be quite good. Paint was mid brunswick, I'll edit in the code, I think I posted it on this thread before. The body is all in one piece, so painting and lining takes patience. Next up was the bogie/front end modification. I chopped the bogie and placed an insert, others have simply drilled out a new slot for the axle for the extra length. Added some faux frames to improve the air gap More up to date, painted the wheels. The Scot chassis is not as "getatable" as more modern designs with plunger pickups for the base keeper plate, which means you have to be very careful when removing the drivers. If doing this, I would remove the body entirely, loosen the motor holder and give the wires some slack to save any resoldering! Overall I found it quite easy to detail the print and painting was less difficult than I had thought initially. One thing I did have to do was file down the weight in the tender somewhat as the tender body wouldn't sit flush. On that note, I may do something about the loco/tender gap at some point in the future. More recently I've come across photos that show Maedbh with the handrails polished rather than painted black, though regulator rodding, steam pipes and the upper handrail on the smokebox were painted black. So today I got a package with brass rod, handrail knobs and a whistle. No rest for the wicked..

Might model 409 myself, MGWR A class will require 6'6 wheels. The A class were decently travelled for Midland engines some living out their last days on the DSER, unsure if they ever went North though! While personally I think they give the GNRI 4-4-0s a run for their money look-wise (an unpopular opinion perhaps!) they were their own beasts! While considered very free steaming, they were described as riding rough as all hell, 'hopping like kangaroos' along the road, and 'bucking' their way up the DSER though they were being flogged to death at that point. Atock had been extremely bogie adverse for passenger locos, his wonderful G2 class 2-4-0s lasting until the end of steam. They were described as smoothly bouncing on their springs when at speed, quite the contrast to the hopping of the A's! Midland men might have been less grateful to Atock for his flyaway cab and the dubious protection it afforded them in the Irish weather!

Mike, it could probably be done; however, IIRC, John designed the length of his overlay to be shortened from the 61'6 inch prototype somewhat to fit the 60' Dapol chassis. So, you'd have to cut back the Worsley sides to fit. @Mayner would know better than I.

Many thanks JB, I'll be sure to give you a bell when I am!

The next mod for the coach will be cutting out the bottom, the interior sits slightly too high for my liking as is. Weight will have to be slung underneath as with yours. 3d printing would indeed be useful for roofs. Interiors and details too. At some point I'd like to tackle the MGWR Limited Mail. Cyril Fry had a model of an A and the entire rake, I believe its been posted on this site by Jb somewhere.

Many thanks JB. Thoughts on the southern composite for a gswr/early gsr corridor? Next thing to figure out with the older coaches is the double step..

Hi JB, many thanks! It's a JM overlay. Might attempt the Worsley too at some point, but I've another one of these to get through first. Donor was the airfix/gmr/dapol stanier 60ft coaches. I have straight repaints of some of these also. I think I've seen the photo of the MGWR corridor in B n T, very odd indeed! Hopefully, at some point, we'll have a 3d printed version, but there's plenty to get through prior! It is painted in the dark green, same colour as Maedbh and the Bredin Steel side below (same can!) It is very deceptive looking, especially without lining. Not to worry, I have a rake of snails and numbers to add! Clip of Cyril Frys 670 tank paint for comparison.

The 1950s is an interesting period in terms of rolling stock. The recently formed CIE had inherited everything from modern steel side coaches built during the GSR period to ancient six wheelers of the MGWR, GSWR, and DSER. A train in the late 1940s or early 50s could be made up entirely of coaches, no two of which the same. Any layout based in the period would need to cover this diversity. The GSR and CIE period coaches have kits available from SSM, Worsley Works, and overlays from JM designs. Some coaches, such as the PRs, have been covered by IFM in the past and a full RTR model will be available from IRM in the future. Hattons produced generic irish six wheelers before going belly up, and these are again decently covered with kits from various kit makers and 3d prints. The big omission is GSWR and MGWR corridor stock. At some point in the future, I'd like to commission prints of these, but for now, scratchbuilding, kitbashing and repaints will reign if someone wishes to model these! Back to the present, I'd purchased some of JM designs overlays for the laminate coaches. Straight away hacking into the donor. Looks like something getting cut up. Tried conserving the strip of clear plastic for the roof plugs, but didn't work out. Will probably cut the bottom out and glue the roof on, as the outer body has a lip for the roof to slot onto. Given a light spray of black so the plastic won't pop out. Looks like the victim of arson! Overlays added Painted, roof dry fitted. Roof vents modified, roof painted Needs filling on ends, detailing, glazing, lining, numbering, and interior painted. New buffers too, secondhand coaches always seem to have missing buffers! Onto the less modern, perhaps this thing could be dressed up to look like something vaguely GSWR? Body and roof loose fitted. On the way is a hornby clerestory and southern corridor composite. Not a million miles off GSWR corridor coaches?

Great photo, looks to be Macha, possibly Tailte.

Yes should be possible, though the prints 'as is' are usually designed just being the tender body, attached to the donor locos tender chassis. I'm sure @Killian Keane could do a full tender if commissioned. Was it confirmed that 186 been hauling around a 400 tender? I often heard it said but never knew the truth of it!

I've considered the 500s also, they're certainly something I'd like to commission sometime in the future. Was a bit of a toss up between the 400s and 500s when considering this. Main advantages the 400s have was their numbers and longevity.

233 sitting spare on the slab

12.50 today was DD

It's a high-quality respray; livery-wise, it's bang on. The transfers are excellent. The lack of buffer stocks and one of the cars is the biggest letdown. Pretty much impossible to model the current era without these things roaring around, polluting the place!

does weathering and billboards count?

Silverfox, Provincial, IFM

For Irish Rail, passenger numbers are booming. https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/06/24/cie-passenger-numbers-climbed-to-pre-covid-high-during-2024/ https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/belfast-to-dublin-train-numbers-jump-50-since-introduction-of-hourly-services-LIBSFAPPKBAIHFTKNONSBJYPPU/ Public transport as a whole has increased quite significantly: https://www.transportforireland.ie/news/its-thanks-a-million-from-nta-as-passenger-numbers-surge-to-a-new-high/ Every intercity train I've been on, no matter what the hour, has been near or at capacity, often crammed with people standing. IR has been trying to keep up with demand but the infrastructure bottlenecks are leading to delays. I think someone suggested terminating Sligo services at docklands, honestly may have to happen to relieve Connolly at some point to allow for improvement works. The question of 'will this last' economically is always a wise one to consider, but despite 'work from home' commuting continues to rise and rise. Many in my generation would not want to work from home full time (I certainly would not!) Ultimately even if it all went tits up, the Belfast line will still need significant works as is. My experience is not in infrastructure projects, but Irish Rail does a lot of refurbishment and improvement work in-house, with the assistance or inclusion of contractors. Other projects are left to contractors entirely. Like all things it comes down to finding good people to do the job. I am far more optimistic about continued strong demand for rail transport across the nation than anything else. I am more pessimistic that infrastructure will be built to accommodate. A no-brainer would be double-tracking to Mullingar or even Longford. Delays at Maynooth and Killucan 'waiting in the loop' add an extra 10-15 minutes to every journey at least. Every bridge is built to accommodate it, though many of the rail bridges (over roads) were singled and would have to be replaced. No need for expensive land acquisitions. With Dart+ West this will become even more necessary; you'll be stuck behind a Dart out as far as Maynooth, time will have to be made up thereafter. Perhaps someday the long-suffering Midland will get the love it deserves!

A big problem you have is that the state has lost a lot of the wherewithal to build public infrastructure, having privatised everything during the neoliberal revolution of the 80s. You can see this here in Ireland. We're pretty good at building roads; there are always roads being built. But we haven't built big infrastructure projects like hospitals or railways, and so they often end up being expensive disasters with a great degree of rent seeking going on. Interestingly, Madrid built a metro system very successfully by effectively designing the construction around the election cycle so politicians could 'cash in' on various tranches of the metro being completed (say a section built every 5 years, lined up with election cycles). A pragmatic solution! I'd argue the tide has shifted, at least in Britain (and many other European countries), toward the state having a more significant role in the ownership of public goods. The slow beginnings of this can be seen in the UK with renationalisation (the clunkily named Great British Railways) along with the constant backlash against private water, utility companies etc. Britain suffers the pioneers curse. First to do it, stuck with ancient infrastructure (Same as ourselves!) and thus restricted by it. It comes with advantages of course, they have an enormous expanse of underground tunnels since the 1860s, whereas some 50 years after proposal, all we have to show for our metro is part of the airport designed to accommodate and 500 million euro spent on nothing. Onto the Enterprise. The Belfast main line is one of, if not the busiest line in the country, with its southern terminus being the most busy station in the country. With major improvement works comes major delays, so on and so forth. Ultimately, I think they may have to just bite the bullet and go either quad track or with a separate HSR running in parallel. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but it certainly cannot continue as is. Widening the viaduct up towards Clontarf and onward would be a 19th century slightly suspect railway developers job! The US is a different kettle of fish of course.

Tbh don't really understand the idea of an hourly Enterprise before gettin new sets in. Purely from a promo pov, you're offering the customer a very varied experience on a DD/ICR/CAF. The DDs and locos ain't getting any younger. Doubt we'll see them until 2030 though. Perhaps a better alternative would be make the Enterprise non stop to say, Drogheda or Dundalk, and from there have a connecting ICR or CAF making the more regular stops. The morning Enteprise is used as a de facto commuter up and down the Belfast main line. Nothing can be done about the DART problem until there's extra tracks to avoid them altogether.

Glory to the 29s!

3003+3002 on 14.50 ex Connolly